“Fluxus is one of the “revolutionary” neo-avant-garde movements of the 1960s. This category also includes the Viennese Actionists, the Situationists, the Affichistes, the Destruction Art Group, the Art Workers’ Coalition, the Guerilla Art Group, Nouveau Réalisme, the Lettrists, as well as Happenings und Gutai. Each of these movements developed within specific societal and historical contexts. [See HOFMANN, Justin: Destruktionskunst. Munich, 1995]

Fluxus stands paradigmatically for the reshaping of the conceptions of “art” and “life”. Fluxus intervened in the representation system of the visual arts and thus changed the societal circumstances of the time, directly as well as indirectly. Artistic expression left the canvas and became actions in space which could be carried out by anyone on the basis of scores, and thus be repeated at will.

A good example of the rejection of a pictorially oriented conception of art is Le Monte Young’s Fluxus event Composition 5: “The action is limited to allowing one or more butterflies to fly around in the performance room and to see to it that all of the butterflies are able to escape. [SCHILLING, Jürgen: Aktionskunst. Identität von Kunst und Leben? Eine Dokumentation. Lucerne, Frankfurt a.M., 1978, p. 81]